


Sit With You (In The Trenches)

by LakeYarina



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Violence, Frances Laurens is a sweetie, Hospitals, M/M, Minor Injuries, Slow Burn, So is John, but it'll take a while to get to said happy ending, like really slow y'all, trying to be blunt here lol, well everyone in this story is except for Charles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25603477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LakeYarina/pseuds/LakeYarina
Summary: John Laurens is a 23-year-old father trying to balance raising a five-year-old with toeing the line of his abusive fiancé, the only thing keeping him off the streets.But something shifts when John crosses paths with Alexander, a 27-year-old triage nurse only living for his next jumbo thermos of coffee, during one of his semi-regular emergency room visits.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, John Laurens/Charles Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh hello hamitlon a03 bubble! many moons again in 2016 i used to write in this tag on the account smolheart but i eventually made a new account when i joined a new fandom, so i'm sticking to this one. i was really blown away to see all the beautiful work continuing to be posted to the Lams tag, and it inspired me to jump back in myself. this story is actually an idea i've had since 2016, but i'm TBH glad i waited bc i feel like i can do it more justice now than 16 y/o me could.
> 
> general trigger warnings for this prologue are hospitals, minor injuries, and heavily suggested domestic violence. title is based off of the new taylor swift song 'peace' from her new album which i highly recommend. god bless taylor swift.

It’s 8:00 pm, and Alexander Hamilton feels helpless.

Sure, it’s not unusual for the last two hour stretch of his twelve-hour shifts to feel slow, but with the Lenox Health Emergency Room oddly quiet for a Thursday night in New York City, time seems to be crawling by at a snail's pace. The few people that are coming in have been getting in and out quickly because of how empty it is, and the usual troublemakers seem to have found elsewhere to wander around drunk, high, or both. Taking a squig of his nearly empty coffee thermos, Alex glances at the time on his computer, huffing when he realizes only a short two minutes have passed since he last checked. He considers going to bug Eliza at the check-in desk about giving him one of the Red Bulls she keeps stashed in a cardboard box but is pulled from that thought when he hears the all too familiar sound of a child crying. Curious, he wheels his stool to the triage room door to eavesdrop.

“Please, I need you to listen to daddy right now.” He hears the absolutely anguished voice of a man saying, also hearing the man sigh when the child he's talking to doesn’t seem to calm down any. Alexander never wants kids, but working in an emergency room for the past year has driven that home more than anything else in his life thus far. Having been puked and peed on more times than he could count, the thought of signing up to experience than even more than he already has makes him physically recoil.

“I know it’s not big like your tablet, but do you think you’d like watching something on my phone instead, just while we’re here?” The voice outside the door continues, Alex realizing when he hears the man trying to check in through the child’s crying that he should probably move away from his eavesdropping position before Eliza sends them his way. 

He moves his stool back to his desk, clicking onto the computer as the information from the check-desk gets sent through. 

“John Laurens?” Alex reads off the screen and looks up to meet eyes with the person now standing in the doorway, immediately taken back by just how young he looks. When he had heard him from the waiting room he had assumed him to be at least 30, but the man standing in front of him doesn't even look like he's pushing 25, the child by his side clutching his leg and watching a video on his phone, the headphones over her ears almost as big as her head.

“Yeah, that’s me,” John says awkwardly as he sits down, pulling his daughter into his lap. It's then that Alexander notices he has ace bandages around his hand holding an ice pack in place, his wrist swollen to boot. Grateful it's not anything too severe to deal with in his tired state, Alex makes an attempt at a joke as he takes his vitals. 

“You’re lucky you broke your hand on a slow night, it’s never this empty here.” He says with a laugh. Having expected a chuckle out of John, Alex looks up when he doesn’t make a sound, and suddenly feels awkward when he registers that his remark seems to have made him uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know if it’s broken, just wanted to be safe. I normally go to NewYork-Presbyterian but we just moved.” John says quietly, Alex furrowing his eyebrows at his choice of phrase.

 _Normally?_ He hasn’t had time to go through his EHR but John makes it sound like he’s made a habit of going to the emergency room, and the more Alex takes in the other man’s demeanor, the more concerned he grows. He thinks back to a domestic violence awareness training all the nurses had been made to go to not too long back and grimaces. This wouldn’t be his first experience getting plopped into the middle of a domestic situation, but how young John looks combined with the kid sitting in his lap makes Alex feel ill. 

“So how did this happen?” He tries, the way John blinks and sits up a little straighter at the question confirming Alex's suspicions. 

“I was lifting a coffee machine down from a cabinet and it fell,” He starts, sounding scripted. But before Alex can ask any followup questions, the little girl in John's lap looks up at her father from his phone, visibly confused.

“That’s not what happened daddy, you were in the TV room with Mister Lee and then,” She starts, cutting herself off when John shoots her what Alex can only describe as a “stern dad look”. She gives a small sigh and looks back down at the phone as John reaches around her turn to the volume up on the video she’s watching, Alex feeling the nervousness radiating off of him. 

“You know, if there’s something about this,” He says, gesturing to his wrapped hand. “That you need to talk to someone about, this is a safe space. We can get you help.” Alex continues, John not meeting his eyes as he spouts off another robotic-sounding monologue, addressing what his daughter insinuated instead of Alex's concern

“I recently got engaged and she’s having a hard time adjusting to having a step-parent. She doesn’t like having to share me, and she always struggles with changes. That’s all.”

Alex resigns, knowing he’s not going to get the other man to budge on the topic. 

“Well, you’ll get taken back for an x-ray pretty quickly since it’s quiet here tonight.” He says, saddened at how relieved John looks for the topic change. He gives Alex an affirmative nod and gets up, walking out with his kid trailing behind him. Alex watches them until they sit back down in the waiting room, closing the door to the triage room and letting out a long sigh. Well now the last hour and a half of his shift is _really_ going to drag.  
~~~  
Walking out of the hospital for the night and still unable to shake the incident from his mind, Alex taps open Facebook on his phone as he walks to the subway station, shoving aside the ethical dilemma of internet stalking a patient as he types John’s name into the search bar. Damn him for having such a generic name which brings up a million profiles, but on page three of the search results, Alex recognizes the freckled face in his profile picture immediately. He clicks through and starts scrolling, met with mostly photos of John with his daughter, who is evidently named Frances, with a few political posts and parenting jokes scattered in between. Not seeing anything about the fiancé he had mentioned, Alex almost closes the app until he comes to a post that tags another man. The post itself a photo of John and who Alex assumes to be his fiancé standing with their arms around each other, Frances sitting on the ground in between them. 

**John Laurens, with Charles Lee**  
_Celebrating our engagement at the High Line._

Alex double taps the picture to view it in full size, grimacing when his eyes catch the way Charles is gripping John’s shoulder so hard that his knuckles are pale. _"Hell of a celebratory pose"_ he mumbles to himself, exiting out of the photo. Taking pause, he notices that while John’s photos of Frances, and even his political posts, seem to rack up love reactions and comments, the only reacts on the “engagement celebration” are from Charles, and someone else with the last name Lee who he assumes is a family member of the man. Deciding he’s had enough to think about without lurking on Lee’s profile too, he closes out of Facebook as his train pulls up, looking forward to getting back to his apartment and crawling into bed.  
~~~  
Alexander is so lost in thought as he enters his apartment that he nearly screams when he sees someone sitting on his couch, it taking a moment for my brain to catch up with his eyes and realize it’s not a robber making himself at home, but his neighbor who had over the past year become one of his closest friends.

“You know Gil, I still don’t understand why you constantly feel the need to let yourself into my apartment when you have a perfectly good one down the hall,” Alex says as he slips his shoes off, Gilbert only shrugging.

“Change of scenery.” He quips back in response and Alex rolls his eyes, chucking his messenger bag off of his shoulder and at his friend’s head. 

He loves Gil, he truly does. But after the way the past few hours have gone, he wants to be alone to wallow in his anxiety. “At this point actually going to your own apartment would be a change of scenery, don’t you have to leave for work now anyways?” Alex says, Gilbert huffing as he checks the time on his phone and begrudgingly gets up off the couch.

“Alas, the drunk and lonely of Greenwich Village are calling for me.” He says dramatically and starts to walk towards the door, stopping short when he sees Alex looking off, distraught. Gil puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls his eyebrows together, what Alex has come to recognize as his signature “I know something is wrong, please talk to me” gesture.

“This patient just, I can’t get him off my mind.” Alex mumbles, kicking himself for how bent out of shape he's actually allowing him to get over this. He’s just a patient, one of the thousands he’s seen over his time at Lenox Health. He’ll probably never see him again, and that thought alone makes his head hurt more than it should.

Gilbert sighs, rubbing Alex’s shoulder in circles. “You need to stop taking your work home with you Alex, if I did that I’d never sleep.” He says gently, Alex fighting the impulse to roll his eyes at him for the second time in less than five minutes. While he doesn’t doubt he had his fair share of near traumatizing experiences working at one of the busiest bars in Manhattan, it’s a world apart from his own profession.

“You work at a bar, I work in an emergency room.”

“My point stands,” Gilbert says and presses a chaste kiss to his forehead before walking out the door.

Alex goes into his room, almost tempted to just pass out in his scrubs before running his hands over his face, working up the energy to at least get a pair of joggers from his closet. He opens his phone first though, tapping open Spotify, turning on his **I HATE EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD** playlist and humming along to the beat of the Breaking Benjamin song that's queued up first as he gets ready for bed. 

While trying to push John from his mind, Alex doesn’t have any idea that the other man is a mere three city blocks away and also in his closet. Except John’s not alone, crouched on the floor with Frances sitting just opposite him, her knees curled up to her chest. 

“He already hurt your hand daddy, why is he mad at you again?” She says quietly, tears running down her face. 

“I don’t know mija, but you just stay here until I come get you.” John says as he fits her headphones back over her curls, kissing her forehead before stepping out and shutting her inside. His head throbs as he starts the walk back to the kitchen that while just a few yards, feels like miles. As soon as Charles sees him he launches a tirade, his third of the day, that John prays his daughter has her tablet volume up loud enough to block out. But he’s soon pulled from his worry by a harsh open-palmed smack across the face, stumbling backward and barely catching his balance. 

It’s 10:28 pm, and John Laurens feels helpless.


	2. Just Around The Corner

John wakes up alone, and says a short prayer of thanks for it. It’s a strange reality in the larger picture of things. Having spent the past few years hopping between couches, hotel beds, and shelters he had sometimes longed for the feeling of sleeping next to someone, an adult someone. But be that as it may, after their argument last night, John’s grateful for the quiet of the apartment without Charles there. Rolling over, he rubs his eyes and notices a piece of notebook paper on the nightstand.

_Meetings all day/evening. See you at 8._

Crumpling it up and getting out of bed, John walks into the bathroom and throws it into the note into the trashcan. When he glances up, he notices his reflection in the mirror and cringes. He hadn’t bothered to look at his face the night before, more focused on getting Frances to sleep and going to bed himself than what he looked like. Which is, for all intents and purposes, a mess. There are long scratches down the side of his face that have already started to scab over, a bruise at the base of his neck, and the physical injuries combined with how exhausted he looks make for quite the picture. Trying to shake it off, John splashes some water onto his face and leaves the bathroom, throwing a hoodie on that obfuscates his neck before going to get Frances up.

Stopping short when he hears giggling coming from the kitchen, John changes directions and walks out from the hallway, stifling a laugh at the sight of Frances standing on a chair by the counter trying to figure out how to work the coffee machine. He thinks absentmindedly that he’s glad Charles isn’t there to ruin the moment by snapping at him about how she might break it. 

“Hi daddy! I wanted to make you coffee cause it’d make you feel better but I don’t know how to make the machine listen.” Frances says, John smiling and grabbing a Keurig cup from the display before going over and showing her how to put it in. It’s a sweet moment, until he can feel her looking at the marks on his cheek.

“Did Mister Lee give you a booboo on your face?” She asks innocently with a frown, John sucking in a deep breath. She had apparently been too tired to notice them last night, which he went to bed grateful for. But now he feels ill.

Running a hand through her hair John gives her a soft smile. “I’m okay mija, you don’t need to worry about me. Yeah?” He says, Frances giving a small ‘yeah’ in response, clearly deflated in a way that makes John feel like the worst father on the face of the planet. It eats him alive day in and day out that by not leaving Charles he’s failing at ‘breaking the cycle’ like he’d told himself he would when Frances was born. But even more nightmare inducing is the knowledge that making any sort of attempt to leave would put them both in danger. Charles never so much as raises his voice at Frances. And as long as that never changes, John can convince himself that getting smacked around is an acceptable trade off for keeping a roof over his kid’s head. He’s been making acceptable trade offs to survive for his entire life, it’s not as though he’s not used to it.

“Is there anything fun you want to do today while it’s just you and me?” John asks, Frances seeming to perk up a little at that.

“Can we watch a movie and have snacks and stuff? We haven’t watched Toy Story in forever and ever.” She responds, John smiling.

“You’re right about that, go brush your hair and get dressed while I get the movie on.” He says and watches her run off down the hallway before starting up Disney+.  
~~~  
All in all, John and Frances had been having an exceptionally good day. They watched Toy Story, went out into the city for a few hours to get lunch and go to the park, came home and at Frances’ insistence were now watching Toy Story 2. John’s more enthralled with the children’s movie then he would ever admit, but that enthrallment is short lived when he hears the familiar creak of the front door, Charles waltzing in.

 _”So much for being gone all day”_ John thinks, grimacing when he feels Frances lean in closer to him at Charles’ entrance.

“You’re home early.” He says, trying his best to sound enthusiastic and forcing a smile, Charles only narrowing his eyes.

“I got out of my last few meetings because I missed you, you could at least try to sound a little grateful.” He grumbles, John instinctually shooting him a glare when he sees Frances’ face fall out of the corner of his eye. The other man seems to get the message at least, smiling and sliding down on the couch next to them.

“And how was your day Frances? I wish I could stay home and watch movies instead of going to work!”

As much as John is grateful for the attempt to save face around the five year old, how utterly _fake_ Charles sounds as he pretends to be interested in Toy Story makes him, in his mind irrationally, upset. Charles sounds nicer putting on his act for his daughter than he is when he talks to John himself most days. But he shouldn’t be jealous of his child. And Charles loves him. He just has a unique way of showing it.

Charles eventually settles down to watch the rest of the movie with them, the most relaxed John has seen him in weeks. He forces himself not to flinch when he wraps an arm around his shoulder, even leaning into his embrace. 

Acceptable trade offs.  
~~~  
A few hours pass and Charles is in a surprisingly good mood, not that John is complaining. He helps John with dinner and even lets Frances convince him to help her with a level she’s been trying to beat on one of the games she plays on her tablet. John smiles as he watches them, briefly remembering his stint in the hospital from the previous night and cringing. The nurse, _Alex, right?_ , was nice. Exceedingly nice. But John didn’t need rescuing. Charles already did that. 

When Frances goes off to her room to play on her tablet alone John takes her place by Charles, smiling softly.

“I suck at all the games she plays on that thing and they’re made for kids, thanks for helping her.” He says gently, expecting Charles to respond with something equally light and recoiling when he instead glares at him, pulling an opened envelope out of his back pocket.

“Your hand wasn’t actually broken, right?” Charles says without looking up, pulling the paper from the envelope and unfolding it. John can tell from where he’s sitting that it’s the hospital bill from last night. He had meant to check their mail box when he was out with Frances but had completely forgotten, regretting it when Charles looks between him in the numbers on the paper sternly. These are their arguments that he hates the most. Charles is more than “well off” and wants for nothing. The apartment they’re living in to begin with cost close to a million dollars. Yet when it comes to anything to do with John, he acts like they’re dirt poor. And if it didn’t upset John so much it’d make him laugh that Charles has the gall to act like this when only one of them has ever been homeless, and that person was John, not him.

John sits up a little straighter, his hands folded in his lap. “No, just sprained. They want me to wear a brace during the day but it’s not broken.” He says robotically, Charles pointing at one of the figures.

“They charged you for a realignment, which you didn’t need because it wasn’t broken.” He says flatly, pushing the paper back inside of the envelope and shoving it at John, standing back up. From John’s position on the couch Charles is towering over him.

“Go back to the hospital and fix this tonight. If you remembered to check the mail earlier today it could have been done already.” He says and John nods, standing up awkwardly and walking down the hall to get Frances. He knows what Charles is going to say next, and everytime he nags him about it John comes closer to snapping back at him. But he had done that once. Never again.

“If I’m going to be her step-dad you need to stop acting like she can’t be left alone with me. I’m not going to eat her for dinner John, she’s a good kid.”

 _”Unlike you”_ was the part Charles left out of that backhanded compliment, John trying to push aside how much it stings as he gets Frances out of her room, helping her tie her shoes before putting his own on and walking out the door.  
~~  
John is close to tears as they cross the parking lot of the hospital, trying to catch his breath so he doesn’t cry in front of some poor billing desk attendant who definitely doesn’t get paid enough to deal with a fully grown man weeping over a typo in a bill. He holds Frances’ hand a little tighter to ground himself, so distracted that he accidentally walks right into someone, yelping when he feels his body come into contact with another. 

“Back already?” He hears the voice of the person he had bumped into saying, taking a step back and blinking. It’s Alex. The nurse from last night. Of-fucking-course he had to run into him again.

“Just to sort out an issue with my bill.” John says, making an attempt to walk past him when Alex stops him short with another question.

“Your fiancé apologize for breaking your hand?” He asks.

John pauses, sucking in a deep breath. “He didn’t break it, it’s just sprained.” He says quietly, only realizing after a beat of silence that Alex set a trap and he’s walked right into it. Now he definitely doesn’t want to stay and chat, picking up Frances so he doesn’t have to keep pace with her and walking into the hospital.

“I can help you sort out your bill. The billing people are pains in the ass but they’re pains that I deal with day in and day out.” Alex says and John realizes that he had apparently scrapped going home to follow him inside.

“You really don’t have to-” He starts, Alex cutting him off with a smile as he gently takes the envelope out of his hand that isn’t holding his daughter, who is too enthralled in the video she’s watching to have any clue what’s going on.

“Oh, I know.” Alex says, and John resigns to letting him help. After all, it can’t hurt, can it?

They take the elevator to the billing office in silence, but the second they step off Alex is running his mouth a mile a minute, marching up to the desk so quickly that John has to speed walk to catch up to him. The billing attendants don’t seem surprised by Alex railing on them, but John almost wants to apologize on his behalf. Alex isn’t being harsh per say, passionate would be a better word for it. John is unsure what to make of him, though before he can give it too much thought he has a new, corrected, bill in his hands. Muttering thank you to the attendants and going to leave, he knows better than to tell Alex he doesn’t need to walk him out. 

“I meant what I said last night. Not just as a nurse but as someone who’s been where you are. I can get you help.” Alex says as they step off the elevator back out into the lobby, and for a brief second John considers it. Alex didn’t have to get his bill fixed for him, but he did. That’s obviously some sort of sign he wasn’t secretly an asshole, wasn’t it? But as well intentioned as Alex seems to be, John knows he needs to get home.

“I really appreciate the offer, but we’re fine. I’m handling it.” John says and holds Frances a little tighter. 

Alex looks disheartened at his rejection, but smiles. “You ever change your mind, you know where to find me, 12 hours a day five days a week.” He says and laughs as he gestures to the hospital walls around him. John gives him a nod and turns to walk away, but when Alex unlocks his phone to check the time he notices something that makes him freeze. Alex’s lockscreen is of him standing in front of Trump Tower with two middle fingers raised, another man with black curly hair standing next to him. John recognizes him immediately, unable to stop the words that spill out.

“Your phone screen, that’s Gilbert Lafayette, right?” He says and Alex looks up, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he lives down the hall from me. You know him?”

John swallows, a wave of sadness hitting him unexpectedly. “Past tense. We used to be roommates.”

“Well I’m sure he’d love to-” Alex starts, going on what John is sure to be another rant about getting him help that he doesn’t know how many times to say he doesn’t want. The thought of him telling Gil about their encounters just makes it worse. He can just see Alex bursting into his apartment to tell him about running into “your old roommate John Laurens!”, and similarly he can see exactly how Gil would react. 

“No no, please. Don’t tell him. I wish I could explain but we haven’t talked in years. He doesn’t need to find out about this.” John says, trying to will away the lump in his throat. He knows the exact amount of time it’s been since they last talked. 1,006 days. 1,006 days since his life he thought he knew had turned completely on its head. 

“Gil is good people. He helped me when I needed it and he’d help you too.” 

Alex’s voice cuts through the internal monologue running at breakneck speed through his head, but John finds himself unable to meet his eyes.

“I know.” He says, leaving Alex with that and walking back out into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: alex does some more digging, on both john and charles. and no, he doesn’t listen to john telling him not to talk to lafayette because of course he doesn’t.
> 
> i live for comments!!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> EHR means electronic health record 
> 
> and there it is! other chapters will be longer and more detailed, as this was more of a prologue before the "real story". right now i have this story mapped at 18 chapters, but it's still a work in progress so it may get longer or shorter depending on a few things. 
> 
> i really genuinely missed this side of a03, so i look forward to chatting with y'all in the comments!!!! i'll be, my lips to god's ears, sticking to an every other day update schedule, so see you lovely ppl with the ~real kickoff~ of this adventure on friday night. (also #fuckthefeds #blacklivesmatter, stay safe out there)


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